Simple answer, they were trying to get the car ready for a tune since I wasn't going to be tuning it in person.

Unfortunately,things changed and the car wasn't in an acceptable condition for tuning. I asked Emery that since the tune wasn't something that I could perform on Sunday (two days after it was supposed to be ready) and needed to remote tune, that the car was gone over fully, and prepared to their standards since I have full faith in them.

You can blame it on the piping, or whatever you would like, but at the end of the day, the car needed serious attention that you weren't willing to pay for. I hate to say it, but that seems to be the story of rebuilding this car.

Correct. PART of what you are saying is true.
The part you don't understand is that they told me if I didn't buy their pipe kit + BOV, they wouldn't tune the car at all.

Do you see what my point is now?

I have no dog in this fight as I've never been to STM but I'm positive they have your best interest at heart. Try to think of it from their point of view as hard as it may be. They've tune hundreds if not thousands of Evos and know what works and what doesn't work. They could have also potentially saved you a motor incase it did let go on the dyno, consider that. I'm not attacking or accusing you but perhaps next time have a sit down with the next shop and go over all your expectations and plans before you buy anything or agree to anything. I know some other shops in the try state area that would react the same way STM did and recommend the same solutions. Hope your car stays healthy and you can complete your build reliably.

I just bought the FIC injectors for almost 1,000; FP black turbo for 1100 + 200 for the oil line, the oil cooler from STM for around 250 and I completely rebuilt the head with the 5041 spring kit (which Dan Martin did) and the block as well.

I had a budget of about 5,500 in total for this car.
There were a few issues remaining; which we were going to fix. Then we were told, we won't tune it if you don't upgrade the piping and the blow off valve. Do you think that needed to be replaced? I have asked several people and the answer was always NO!

That's all this entire post was about. Being turned down for piping and blow off valve (And Emery won't repeat that line on this forum). Simply because it was a hard sales technique to make another sale.

Do you get it now? Come on Chris, I know you are a smart guy- you should know where I am coming from.

You keep saying that they won't tune it, but they never said they were going to tune it. They let you know that I would be there and could tune the car for you. If the car isn't ready, it isn't ready, and clearly isn't their fault. I see what you are reaching to do, but there is reasoning behind all of this whether you like to believe it or not. You think it's about a couple of bucks, but it takes more time trying to figure out why a car isn't healthy, or cleaning up a dyno that the motor puked all over... which you wouldn't want to pay for either.

Ok, who would you recommend to take the evo to in the tri state area?
I will post their results on here in this thread for a follow up. We already heard from Emery himself that he doesn't like 2.3 engines. He has a point, since they are a little harder on the bearings; but they also make more torque.

But remember my point is this:
The intercooler piping and blow off valve are fine and fully functional without being upgraded and the car is safe to tune on my piping and blow off valve. That's the only area they really steered us wrong. But it seems like the only thing people hear from me is:
"Bad Mouthing" STM!

Its not like that.

Could it use an upgrade? Maybe it would look nice or make a few more horsepower, sure... but it is doing no harm the way it is.

Thanks, those are both valid points and I appreciate that. Again, I never requested to put the car on the dyno spilling out oil.

All I know is they didn't want to tune the car on their dyno at all, unless we used their pipe + BOV, which seems a little far fetched.

We were in a rush with a few issues yes; that is true. I'm not here to bad mouth stm or spread lies by any means.

It seems apparent to me that Emery just doesn't like the 2.3 and that has something to do with it.

What do you not understand that Chris was going to be tuning your car. It wasn't going to be us. Chris has the experience with Speed Density on a Stock ECU. We don't tune it. AT ALL. period.

Hence why you talked to him on the phone a few days before he was in town to work out the details. As HE WAS THE ONE THAT WOULD BE TUNING YOUR CAR.

How many times does this need to be repeated before you stop posting "STM forced me to buy parts"."sketchy business practices" etc

You have some good parts on the car now, but more needs to be done in our opinion.

-Brian Gleason

We tuned a 2.2 stroker that weekend... he didn't once complain about it.

Disclaimer: I have no dog in this fight

I think you are missing once crucial piece of the puzzle: They do not tune speed density on stock ECU!

I don't understand why you are getting so butt hurt over this. It sounds like they saved your ass from yet another engine rebuild. You appear to be in such a rush to get this vehicle "tuned" putting together this poor car "half assed". From what the way its described", your car will more then likely blow up on the dyno on its first power pull. STM has been a reputable vendor on here for years. If they turned you away it was for your own good. Get your **** together and fixed correctly.

And quit blaming them for turning you away because of your knock off blow off valve and intercooler piping. And fix your oil leak.

We tuned a 2.2 stroker that weekend... he didn't once complain about it.
That's good.

You guys are right about part of this, but it didn't need piping or a blow off valve. That was my main point.

I know that STM doesn't tune speed density on the stock ECU. They told me that. But they didn't even want it on their dyno.

I wouldn't want a oil leaking on my 100k dyno either bud

I seen the car and looked over the car. The part about the intercooler piping and bov is that, yea ok you had it tuned like that before with no problems ect... How do you know that the blov wasnt leaking?? Did you stand with your hand over the bov to feel if it was??? And the piping was all hacked up pieced together. It would certainly have caused problems and blown off on the dyno... When I had the car on the lift the lower ic pipe was barley on the turbo. The worm clamp was half on one side of the pipe rib and half on the outside of the rib. I tried putting it on there correctly but couldn't bc it was to short, being half a aftermarket lower pipe and half a stock hose piping. That would have certainly blown off on the dyno and take more time and lot more hassle to try to put it back on while on the dyno. Or even worse blow off and get spit out by one of the rollers and hit and injure someone. Stm wasn't forcing you to buy just there piping, if you would of had a full legitimate ( not pieced together) piping kit from ams or cbrd or buschur then it wouldn't have been a issue.

I am going to say this once and only once. Steve, You are 100% correct. Without you upgrading/changing your IC pipe/BOV (among several other things) I personally would not be interested in tuning your car. It would have to be changed to a MAF setup for me to even consider it. So yes, You are right. We would need you to make those changes (again, Among many others) before It was even an option for me to personally tune it. We tried to give you another avenue by offering Chris our dyno to help you. Chris asked me for my honest opinion and I gave it to him. There are a lot of things on the car that need attention to tune it or even make it safe to attempt. I could have told him to just go for it and I'm pretty confident you would be signing a whole other song at this point about how we blew up your car. We had every ones best interest in mind denying your car/tune. If you can't understand that then In sorry but in reality not everyone can see things the same way.


As far as the 2.3 goes. Not my favorite setup but I have definitely tuned a lot of them with great success. So that holds no water either.

-Emery

Unless I am not seeing this correctly, is the HKS prone to failure? Or is this just for high boost you wouldn't use it?

The Piping and inter cooler in that car was provided by AMS.
The coupler on the intake manifold was extremepsi.

Is it only the piping? Or is the blow off valve needing to be changed on account of it not fitting the flange?